Why Idris Elba chose comedy to tell his most personal story 10 Feb, 2021 06:00 AM 9 minutes to read With In the Long Run, Idris Elba wanted to turn his parents' "hardships and integration into the UK into stories that were lighthearted," he said. Photo / Getty Images New York Times By: Salamishah Tillet In the Long Run, a sweetly comic series set in 1980s London, is based on the real-life childhood of an actor best known for intense dramas like The Wire and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. In the Long Run, which wrapped up its third season last year, is a comedy based on actor Idris Elba's childhood in the Holly Street Estate, a racially diverse public housing community in the Hackney borough of London. Set in the fictionalised Eastbridge Estate in the early '80s, Elba, who created the series for Britain's Sky One, plays Walter Easmon, who, like Elba's actual father, Winston, immigrated to England from Sierra Leone and worked in a nearby American-owned car parts factory.